'Cracker' options are limited

August 5, 2013

Comments

Suttle

I think the editorial is anti worker: * Not enough workers available for construction (yet tens of thousand of construction workers live with in 200 miles of any proposed cracker sight. * Not enough flat land (but sights have been identified for the cracker in West Virginia - including the Washington area sight)

These excuses sound flimsy to me. I thing big business is trying to negotiate a better deal for a cracker to be located in a neighborhood near you!!

neocurmudgeon74

Chemical companies build vertically when it makes the process more efficient.

Building vertically just to reduce acreage increases cost of construction, & may impair efficiency or safety. Companies do it if there is some major advantage to that site. I think the companies can do the math.

RANDOM21

Seems they used it to keep running while not expanding programs or hiring more government workers that would have increased the need for more money. What did you do with the stimulus money sent directly to people during Bush's term? You remember when the money was sent to the people and not to governments to allow for the trickle down stimulus that had to go thru all the bureaucratic levels with end result of few jobs for hundreds of thousands of dollars per job. When nearly 90% of jobs created since 2009 being part-time, maybe we should have a elected a part-time president. Oh, wait, you all did.

RANDOM21

The Wood County site has been and still is an option. The increase of drilling in the local area will also be a determining factor, as will the proximity of end users of the products. This plant will be a 3-4yr construction project and will have 2500 construction workers at any given time. It will done in phases and not all crafts will be involved all the time. Operating engineers, carpenters, iron workers and cement finishers will be big at start with electricians, pipe fitters and insulators later. Working two or three shifts is not out of the realm of possibilities. "The work expands to fill the time allotted."

AaronS

I wonder, was that site considered? As for building vertical, were that an option, wouldn't it have been considered when the site just south of the casino was under consideration? Given that was the 1st choice, it seems to me that if vertical were an option, the cracker would be coming to WV instead of PA.

As for the construction workers, building a cracker is a little different than building a house, particularly in the number of concrete finishers needed as the conservative estimate is 500,000 yards of concrete.

RANDOM21

When one builds a home the contractor doesn't have roofers standing around watching the foundation being poured. The "ten thousand", which is a high estimate, aren't all needed at once. The land is available in Washington Bottom, but it's downriver from Sabic not DuPont. The options are not that limited, Wood County could make it happen very nicely.

AaronS

Is there not coal that could be MTR mined in northern WV? If so, why not kill two birds with one stone. Acquire the land through a joint venture with a coal company in which they mine the coal but leave the land for development.